


wander through each chartered street

by a_walking_shadow



Series: a mistake, forged into a triumph [1]
Category: Fallen London | Echo Bazaar, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Sirius Black Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-20 20:03:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18999544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_walking_shadow/pseuds/a_walking_shadow
Summary: Sirius Black falls through the veil, and his godson follows him.They end up in... well, it's London, but certainly not the London they knew.





	wander through each chartered street

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "London", by William Blake. Will I ever stop stealing titles from poetry? Probably not.

‘You know’, Sirius says casually to the gaoler, ‘I’m really beginning to wonder if there’s a reason I keep ending up in prison for things I haven’t done.’

‘Shut it, you’, grumbles the gaoler. In the next cell over, Harry buries his head in his hands, wondering how on Earth he ended up in this situation, and what he did to deserve his completely incorrigible godfather.

‘No, really’, Sirius continues, apparently unbothered by the gaoler’s scowl. ‘Do I have the words “arrest me” tattooed on my forehead in ink only visible to corrupt law enforcement officials, or something? Because this happens _way_ too often.’

The gaoler grunts, and continues his rounds. Sirius whistles lightly, stretching out as much as is possible in a tiny cell containing several exceedingly territorial rats. He looks the picture of innocence, or at least like someone trying very, very hard to be not at all suspicious.

Harry thinks he couldn’t be more questionable if he tried, and glares at him.

‘Wasn’t very friendly, was he? Ah well. At least we’re a step closer to getting out.’

‘Getting- Sirius, he’s not going to help us. We’re stuck.’

Sirius smirks, and raises his manacled wrists with a clatter. ‘He already has. He should’ve kept a closer eye on his keys.’

Harry gapes, then scrambles for the door.

 

* * *

 

‘Where are we?’ Harry asks, once they’re clinging to the bottom of a supply… thing… flying over a city. Which has a ceiling rather than a sky. And, apparently, nothing more technologically advanced than the Wizarding World, despite the fact that most people seem to be, well, muggles.

‘Haven’t the foggiest’, Sirius replies. He’s grinning, the wind- well, what counts for it- tugging at his hair. ‘Although- that, over there. It looks a bit like Big Ben, don’t you think?’

‘We’re in London?’ Harry fights to keep the disbelief out of his voice, and doesn’t quite succeed. The city below them isn’t like anything he’s ever seen. Sirius doesn’t seem to hear him, and when Harry glances over, his godfather is dangling precariously by his fingertips and laughing like an utter maniac. With the manacles and prison garb, he cuts quite a frightening figure.

Harry, for his part, just shakes his head and lets Sirius enjoy himself. He deserves it.

 

* * *

 

Eventually, the flying thing descends, and as it passes over a hill, Harry feels like the drop is probably small enough to be survivable. He drops into an alleyway with an awkward clatter, Sirius falling in a pile of limbs and hysterical laughter just behind him. Shaking his head slightly, he heads for the main street, confident his godfather will catch up soon enough.

Unfortunately, no sooner has he stepped onto the main street than he notices several uniformed constables harassing a weepy girl. Harry clenches his teeth. He doesn’t have the best track record with government officials and law enforcement, and this lot haven’t exactly endeared themselves to him.

‘Let her go!’, he calls, wading into the fray. A moment later, he remembers he’s still wearing prison rags, a mask over his face, and has both his hands and feet in manacles, and realises that he’s probably just made a pretty big mistake.

To his utter surprise, however, the constables don’t even comment on it. Instead, one of them just scowls, shoving the girl in his direction. ‘We’ll be keeping an eye on you’, they tell him, then stomp off to do whatever it is constables do when they aren’t harassing people.

The girl pulls out the pin she’d jabbed herself with, in order to make the tears flow more easily. Harry blinks, silently adjusting his worldview to include getting caught by pickpockets acting innocent. The girl just smiles at him. ‘The coppers sometimes send you away out of pity, if they don’t think you’re worth the bovver. Not these b_ _ _ _rs though. I owe you one.’ Harry blinks again, and nods. Then she’s gone, melting into the crowds, presumably to continue her thievery somewhere else.

And then-

‘Psst!’

Harry jumps, startled, and peers into the darkness. There’s a figure there, lurking in the shadows, doing a surprisingly good job of keeping out of sight for someone as big as Uncle Vernon, except entirely muscle.

‘You lookin’ for a pet, son?’

‘Um’, Harry says, because this is so not what he was expecting when a giant man with scars to put Mad-Eye to shame stopped him in an alleyway.

‘Only, I’ve got a marsh wolf ‘ere. Didn’t take so well to training, but you’ve got a kind look in your eyes. D’you want ’im?’

‘Um’, Harry says again. ‘Why me?’

The man shrugs. ‘Helped the weepy pickpocket back there, didn’t ya? Guess we owe you a favour.’

‘Right’, Harry mutters. He’s not entirely sure what that has to do with him being given an animal, but he’s not really sure he wants to argue the point with a guy this big, either. Especially not since he hasn’t seen his wand since he was arrested. He really doesn’t want a dog, though. Not when he doesn’t even know where he is, or how long he’ll be here before Dumbledore works out a way to get him back home.

Thinking quickly, he adds, ‘it’s just, well. I’ve already got one, you see.’

‘Already got one?’

‘A… marsh-wolf, you called it?’ He glances around desperately, and much to his relief, Sirius has been listening in. His godfather transforms on the spot, hurrying to Harry’s side. The man considers him, frowning.

‘E’s a bit disappointing for a marsh-wolf, isn’t ‘e?’

‘He’s mine’, Harry tells the man fiercely.

‘Course ‘e is, luv. Course ‘e is. Has ’e got a name?’

‘Snuffles’, Harry says quickly. Sirius snorts.

‘Fine name, that. Snuffles it is. Well, you ever want to trade ’im in, you know where to find me, alright?’

‘Uh, yeah. Thanks, I guess.’

The man nods amiably, and disappears again.

 

* * *

 

‘All right. Where are we?’

The woman shrugs. Her companion is wrapped entirely in bandages, like a mummy, and Harry resists the urge to stare. There’s definitely nothing muggle about this place, for all that no one seems to be practicing magic openly either. ‘Watchmaker’s Hill, darling. You’re new?’

‘He looks like he’s from the surface’, croaks the mummy-woman. Even her voice sounds dusty.

‘The surface?’

‘We’re in Fallen London, dearie. The city that Fell.’

Harry clenches his eyes shut. Nothing makes sense, here. The people, the lack of magic, the lack of technology, the darkness.

Where have they ended up, exactly? Was the veil a gateway to the afterlife, or something else entirely?

He doesn’t regret following Sirius. He can’t. Sirius is his _godfather_ , he’s the only family Harry has left, and anyway, Dumbledore will find a way to get them back, he’s sure. This is just… a weird, temporary holiday. Or something.

‘When did it fall?’ he asks, because nothing makes sense and he might as well just play along with these lunatics and hope the answer makes sense in context.

The woman frowns, glancing to her companion uncertainly. Mummy-woman thinks for a moment, then coughs out her answer.

‘eighteen sixty-two, it was. Thirty years ago.’  

‘EIGHTEEN SIXTY-TWO?’

‘… do you have a problem, young man?’

Harry, for his part, just grabs Sirius and runs.

 

* * *

 

‘Breathe’, Sirius orders him. They’re on the edge of the marshes, now- presumable the marshes referred to in the term “marsh-wolf”. Harry’s trying hard not to think about the dangers inherent in that. He’s trying not to think about anything, really, but he knows that won’t be an option for very long.

‘We’re in the past, Sirius! I don’t- time travel doesn’t work this far back, Hermione said so back in third year! We can’t get back!’

‘I know’, Sirius tells him. ‘I know.’

‘Ron, Hermione- will I ever see them again?’

‘Harry’, Sirius murmurs, crouching down. ‘I don’t think this is time travel. I don’t know where we are, but this isn’t the London we know. And as for going back-’ he pauses, choking back a laugh. ‘I don’t know if we can, all right? But all we can do, right now, is stay safe, and hope that Dumbledore will find a way to get us back.’  

‘But-’

‘No buts’, Sirius says, firmly. ‘The others will find us eventually, all right? Until then, I’m your adorable marsh-wolf companion Snuffles, and we’re going to find somewhere to get a meal, and somewhere to sleep, and maybe even some clothes which aren’t manacles. After that, we can worry about getting home.’

Harry’s hands are trembling, but he nods. ‘Any suggestions on how to do that, then?’

Sirius grins, and reaches into his pockets, pulling out a newspaper- why their prison uniforms have pockets remains a mystery, almost as much as why their masks are made out of satin. Then again, they seem to have travelled back in time well over a hundred years to an underground city with mummies walking the streets, so it’s hardly the only odd thing here.

Harry reads the title- _The Magazine Formerly Known as the London Magazine_ \- and scowls at the date: 1897. Sirius, for his part, flicks through several pages of mushroom poetry, eyebrows raising incredulously as he reads a particularly racy piece of drug-fuelled mushroom themed erotica. Eventually, though, he finds whatever he was looking for.

‘Rat catchers wanted’, Sirius says. ‘Apply at the Medusa’s Head on Watchmaker’s Hill. That’s where the women said we were, wasn’t it?’

‘You want me to get a job as a rat-catcher?’

Sirius shrugs. ‘Why not? I’d like a chance to catch rats. He grins, showing far too many teeth for it to look at all friendly. ‘I find it cathartic, killing the little blighters. They’re tasty, too.’

‘Oh, I didn’t want to know’, Harry grumbles. Sirius just grins at him, so he sighs, and drags himself to his feet, glaring daggers at the shackles around his legs. ‘And then?’

‘We’ll work that out when we get there, won’t we?’

 

* * *

 

He gets a job. He talks a soft-hearted widow into letting him sleep in her spare bedroom. He sells the manacles on his wrists and ankles, and gets himself a faded set of workman’s clothes which itch in all the wrong places but don’t mark him out as someone who just escaped from prison. Sirius pads alongside him in dog form, and no one gives them a second glance.

Not once does anyone stop him about being “the boy who lived”. No one challenges him about Voldemort. No one asks him to fight a war.

He still misses Hogwarts. He still wants Ron and Hermione. But, as he lies in bed that night, listening to bats swooping through the cavern, Snuffles curled up and reluctantly letting himself be used as a pillow, Harry can’t help but things could have turned out far worse.

He’s got his godfather, and just outside the door, there’s a whole city waiting to be explored- a whole world, even. And he’s a nobody. He’s just Harry. No one’s going to try and tell him who he’s supposed to be.

Harry smiles, and for the first time since Cedric died, his dreams are peaceful.

**Author's Note:**

> UPDATE AS OF 23/07/2019: I HAVE INSPIRATION! This story is now part of a series, and has a sequel. Hooray!


End file.
